The Radiology team won the 2014 Step it Up Challenge with a cumulative total of more than 6 million steps taken during the eight week competition. The five members of the winning team each received an iPad mini at the awards celebration.
Photo Credit: Contributed

White Plains Hospital employees participated in summer wellness initiatives including its Step It Up Challenge and Stepping With Susan.Photo Credit: Contributed

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- White Plains Hospital kept its employees on the move this summer with two new wellness initiatives focused on staying active.

Employees participated in the "Step It Up Challenge," in which various departments competed against each other for taking the greatest number of walking steps, as well as a "Stepping Out with Susan" program in which WPH President Susan Fox led fellow employees on one-and-a-half mile fitness walks twice a week around the neighborhoods surrounding the hospital.

The Step It Up Challenge began in early June, when 78 different department-based teams, each consisting of five employees, were given pedometers to record their daily steps. The teams logged more than 67,000 miles walked by the competition's end.

The members of the winning radiology department team, who completed more than 6,500,000 steps during the eight-week contest, each won an iPad mini at an awards ceremony with Hospital leaders on Monday, Aug. 11.

Separate from the challenge, the Stepping with Susan walks were an opportunity for dozens of hospital employees to include a bit of fun and fitness into their workdays and enjoy the warm weather during lunchtime.

“Both of these programs were designed and implemented to promote health and wellness for our employees,” said Frank LoCastro, wellness program coordinator at the hospital.

“As health care workers who are in the business of taking care of others, it is even more important that we as an institution practice what we preach and take time each day to incorporate simple activities and other healthy behaviors into our lives.”